"Moved from Muscle Tower to vacate the floor for the Monster Buyon." Chayote read a sign on an abandoned warehouse. One of the multiple scrap rectangles put together in an afternoon only to store obsolete technology or things that required some privacy or special procedures or solitude to fix. With the tower seldom being raided and serving as a military base and an imprisonment facility, it made sense that someone would like a separate facility to store projects in.
The good news was that there was some gear that looked advanced enough to survive hi-speed space travel. The shells of the Artificial Humans in the works appeared sturdy, some seemed sturdier than even Chayote could dent which surprised the Saiyan. She had never witnessed technology posing a notable threat before, not like this. Not to someone of her power level.
The lights in the eyes of the Artificial Humans lit up, startling Chayote as they lunged at her all at once. The space to move around in was limited, then there was also the human factor, the revived Artificial Humans just straight out scared Chayote and in those moments one tended to forget the profound power difference. These automatons acted odd, they did not punch, kick or claw, they just wrapped their limbs around Chayote and locked them, forcing the reinforced alloy comprising their bodies to bend out of shape so that it stayed permanently locked.
Escaping this lock was not quite a matter of strength, of which Chayote had plenty, it was more of a matter of extreme contortionism she was incapable of. The group wrapping around her soon began resembling a body pile. Chayote grunted and struggled, she could dislocate and further bend the combined alloys out of shape but by doing so she only trapped herself further in their hold.
"Impressive, aren't they? Artificial Humans No. 5 through 11, with only one absence, although you've already met No. 8. Given how you're here, I'd reckon he failed to kill you, I told Commander White my Artificial Humans were not ready yet. It would be decades before they could kill the likes of you. I'm afraid whether it is the Red Ribbon or the White Ribbon, nobody here takes the word of a genius scientist for what it should amount to." A bald, grey man walked out from the shade, flipping his long lab coat to bypass a disorderly mess of metallic limbs that the charge of his steel brigade left behind.
"Your puppets can't kill me, if you want me out of this planet, that's exactly why I've come here. Give me those drafts and I'll be in space before you can finish reading the blueprint to one of those things." Chayote tried to reason with this Earthling. For the first time ever, one of these disgusting and devious bastards had something to threaten her with – she needed those robots. She couldn't go back to square one, not again. Something deep down in her demanded that she won this encounter and returned to Jingle Village with what she needed.
"I am afraid I cannot do that, girl. You have ruined my life, you see. You do not know this yet, you wouldn't care even if you did. All you leave behind you is destruction, fire, and bodies. You've parted me from my son, my boy and… You've destroyed the only solace I had left in my life after his death." The originator of these Artificial Humans got dangerously close to the mangled mess of limbs and metal that Chayote laid buried and held under. The scientist almost taunted the teen Saiyan to bust out when he knew she wouldn't.
"Look, I… I didn't destroy your stupid base. Your own Commander did that!" Chayote roared out, trying to make all of her Ki explode from inside her in a singular explosive wave. A feat that, she knew, would have devastated and torn all of those submission-specialist skeletons off of her. The Saiyan had wondered if she'd come to regret spitting at her previous desire to turn her body and mind into one and master Ki manipulation that sometimes worked and sometimes did not, what she did not know at the time of making that reckless decision to ignore that was how soon she would regret it.
Not even a fart left Chayote's body, despite her utmost efforts to make her Ki erupt from every pore in her body in an explosive bubble.
"Just so you know why you will die. My name is Dr. Gero. You did not kill my son, he had died some time ago, fighting the military of West City, over the territory of Ginger Town, where the Red Ribbon Base was initially to be located. The Red Ribbon failed, they had the mightier military but our forces were stretched too thin, we were fighting all over the world and, because of that, our ignoramus of a leader got pushed back into the depths behind the Sacred Land of Korin, somewhere he deemed he'd be safe from West City's persecution." Dr. Gero employed the novel strategy of boring Chayote to death. The Saiyan continued to wrangle, twist and test his improvised restraining method, the scientist saw that but he did not appear to be all too pressured by it, something that worried Chayote a tiny bit.
"After my son's passing, I had buried myself in work. I've made magic because what I intended to do required the hands of a magician. Nobody, not even Dr. Brief could accomplish as much in artificial human technology as I did. I suppose I was lucky that the Red Ribbon failed to plant themselves at the backdoor of West City – they'd have taken Dr. Brief to work for them and I would have become obsolete. Obsolete things tend to be treated with a bullet to the brain around those parts. Regardless, I very nearly succeeded in the task of returning my son to life as an artificial human, however, due to the fact that there was only one shot of getting it right, I requested a transfer to this forgotten place – the then General White was the most interested in the Artificial Human technology and had plenty of samples for me to master what I was about to accomplish, before I devoted my only son's body to my miracle."
"Is that why Eighter is such a lousy piece of garbage? Because you were still experimenting?" Chayote tried to bite Dr. Gero with words by insulting his work. She had seen some of the alien engineers overseeing that Planet Vegeta and its military functioned perfectly every day get too sensitive about that sort of thing and she counted to get a reaction from Gero as well. The man pulled out a revolver and pointed it at Chayote, he considered firing, maybe emptying the whole gun but his hand wavered and with a depressed breath, the man caved, dropping the gun down.
"I suppose he would be considered a failure to simpler minds. Contrary to what I was instructed to do, I never intended to make my son as a weapon to people that have gotten him killed, to begin with. My boy was always meant to be a kinder soul, one that fought to protect the people dear to him and no other reason, just like he was in life. The one you know as Artificial Human No. 8 is what you would call a beta version of what my son was to become." Dr. Gero explained while picking the gun from the floor and pocketing it into his lab coat again. From the same pocket he pulled the gun, the scientist revealed a single remote control device, similar to the one that activated and supposedly de-activated Artificial Human No. 8.
"When you… Or Commander Red… Nuked the Red Ribbon Base, you've left nothing there to return to. Only a radioactive wasteland I could not approach in miles. It would have taken me years before I could have built something capable of getting me inside the bunker where my son's body is likely still held. Just to see if his body had not been ruined by the surrounding destruction and if the bunker served its function. That is why you will die, the Red Ribbon may have killed my boy, you, however, you've sealed the deal and just when I began working on a way to bypass the results of your reckless rampage, you've kicked the White Ribbon down to the curb as well. Now my work would have to start anew, I cannot stomach the thought of working for the Blue Ribbon army either. I would likely not survive the decades needed for me to build my suit from scratch. You will find out today that the mind is a sharper tool for vengeance than muscle." Dr. Gero raised the remote in a showy manner, he intended Chayote to beg him to not do whatever he was to do or sweat in horror but… Truthfully, she felt just kind of confused…
"Wait… You don't think those tin cans can kill me, do you?" she muttered.
"You utter imbecile, are you not aware of the bombs located in every single one of my creations? Every single one of them is mightier than the nuke that destroyed the base and a much purer version of the weapon. It will not taint this land for brighter minds of the future, it will just remove the pesky elements of the present." Dr. Gero explained his plan before his thumb reached for the button.
"You fool. You're standing right next to me. You'll die too." Chayote raised an eyebrow, not looking all too impressed by the man's desperate plea for revenge and the abyssal depths he had sunken to so that he could claim that comeuppance.
"I have been killed long ago by the bullet that killed my son. Farewell, alien monster." Dr. Gero closed his eyes and pressed the button. Whereas the activation and de-activation of the button were initiated by pressing the only button on the remote, the activation of the self-destruction bombs within the bodies of the artificial humans were set off by pressing the button and holding it down for a short instant.
A cascade of white flashes expanded over Chayote, blinding her for a moment while the entire warehouse district sunk to white. Dr. Gero's lab coat rustled in the escalating force shockwave that soon tore him to shreds before the heatwave of the super-blast even hit the man's body. The intense sensations of forceful pressure of the shockwaves detonating all around her and the unbearable heat overwhelmed Chayote's senses and made her perception white out and seemingly skip forward to when she could once more process the environment around her. Dr. Gero planned for that time to never come…
Chayote's eyes opened to a blur. Electric pain seeped through her oculars right through her brain like long needles had pierced it from one end to another and then got rattled and jerked around without any subtlety of mercy. The Saiyan wanted to move but that noble quest failed before it even started. Even if Chayote willed to move just a muscle, there was some deeper thought that convinced her otherwise. It was as if the Saiyan had known all along that movement would have been pointless.
The sewn together and chunky face of Artificial Human No. 8 peeked from the upper side of the bag on which Chayote laid with an overjoyed smile. A tear the size of an adult nose hung from the right eye of the gentle artificial human.
"You've recovered!" he stated the obvious with a degree of cheer that suggested that the fact may not have been quite as obvious as Chayote had taken it to be. "I guess those life reading systems of mine really do work."
"Did you just sit here and watch me sleep?" Chayote grumbled. Even when she was awake and chipper, grumbling comprised an important part of her day's work, there was no reason to believe that recovery after injury would have made things any different.
"I am an Artificial Human, I do not need sleep or food." Eighter declared. Once Chayote did brave up to move around, the giant gasped and began to force the young Saiyan to settle back down. "That explosion… It was an Artificial Human, wasn't it?"
"Several, actually…" Chayote growled in pain before giving up and slumping in the bed. A sigh escaped her chest. "Some old prune blew all of them up with a remote control. They were failed models, apparently, and yet each one of them blasted with the same force that decimated the Red Ribbon Base. The total collection actually hurt me… Who knows, maybe a good decade or two and the bombs would become advanced enough to threaten the whole planet?"
It had been a while since someone or something reminded Chayote she was mortal and everything she stood to lose if she died. Perhaps she truly had taken the difficulty of her second life for granted and underestimated too many threats?
"So that's the kind of device that's in me then…" Artificial Human No. 8 looked down with solemn self-reflection. "I cannot threaten this village or its people. Suno-chan and the village chief were so kind to me. If somebody from the army came and blew me up, I dread to even imagine it…"
True to his word, the artificial human shook in his boots despite wearing a turtleneck and a blazer large enough to be someone's parachute. Chayote could have used it as a tent.
"So what are you going to do?" Chayote wondered. The giant had such an aversion to fighting that the Saiyan almost wanted to see the artificial human declare some sort of vendetta against the splinter groups of the former Red Ribbon and hunt all of them down one by one. "All those artificial humans I found blew up in my face so if you want to die and give me your parts, I would get it. That bomb might make a wicked thruster…"
"I… Uh…" Eighter looked confused.
"It's fine if you don't wanna die." Chayote breathed out another heavy sigh. She just felt so useless and vulnerable lying in bed like this. "There's this woman in West City, she's an inventor, she might be able to remove the bomb inside your body. She's the one who will build me my spaceship too but that might take a long time even after I get the parts. Just because my head is wobbly and cracked way too hard and no other reason, I am willing to let you cut in line."
Goku's childish and somewhat simian manner of laughter attracted the attention of both Artificial Human No. 8 and Chayote. The boy just stood in the doorway leaned over and pressing his belly that ached out of the tension that the cheer he felt deep down put on it. His tail waggled fast enough to crack somebody's bones if it hit them like an improvised whip.
"I knew it, Chayote's actually a nice person," Goku exclaimed with his eyes closed and still wiping his nose that never really stopped sniffling since the Saiyan stopped brawling.
"Shut up. What are you doing here? Weren't you looking for your Grandpa?" Chayote wondered.
"Well, obviously, I was going to wait until you recovered." Goku opened his eyes, looking a bit confused as to why Chayote would even imply that he'd just leave her injured and out. It was likely him who got to the Saiyan and scooped her up from the wreckage of the abandoned warehouses.
"Obviously…" Chayote snorted. Had she been at all capable of shame, she'd have blushed at recalling when she buggered off with her own business instead of seeing Goku recover and he was one of the most important people on this rock.
"Anyway, the village chief helped me repair Kinto but my Dragon Radar's not working. Bulma gave you a new one, didn't she? I figured we could go to the next army base together. There can't be that many left, plus, you're still looking for parts, aren't you?" Goku scratched the back of his head. He knew full well how this sounded, him expressing how much he cared for Chayote's recovery and then give a valid reason to why he was unable to proceed without her. Although his initial declaration of good intent did sound genuine.
"Whatever, we're heading to West City anyway so it works out." Chayote sat up, still holding her back in pain. "We'll drop Artificial Human No. 8 there, you have Bulma fix your Dragon Radar, then we'll head for the closest bunch of Dragon Balls. Chayote tried pulling out her own radar but noticed that there was no reaction whatsoever to button pressed either. The aura of Ki erupting from her body during the blast must have protected the radar a tiny bit, as it did to some of her clothing, but the radar was simply not built to withstand point-blank bombing from weapons of mass destruction, few things were.
Was she intent on dropping Eighter by Capsule Corp because that was how she felt or was this just a façade to look nice while she truly wanted to have the radar repaired? No. That was reaching it. Chayote must have truly wanted this because she did not find out about her radar being busted as well until after she had suggested the idea to Eighter and then settled on it. Also, she did not really need the radar now that she found Goku.
For some reason, settling these sort of things straight made Chayote feel more at ease inside, alleviated her pain and made her want to just relax and get some sleep.
A few days later, the two Saiyans, atop their respective Kinto clouds took off to the enthusiastic farewells from the people of the Jingle Village. Wearing Suno's felt odd but it was clothing, something that Chayote had trouble with all the time, the jacket would begin feeling far too warm once the two would leave the north-south but Chayote counter on the jacket being too small to the point where some of her belly taking in the pelting of the upper layers of the constant snowfall to chill her out then.
"Bye Bye! I'll come back to visit someday!" Goku waved back at the crowd whereas Chayote just ignored them. She did not even have the excuse for ignoring them that Goku did, what with the lumbering artificial human hanging on his back, appearing quite capable of riding the Kinto, something that may have added a bit of spice to Chayote's grumpy soup.
It worked out that Eighter was so strong and durable, even if he had some of the strongest aversions to fighting Chayote had ever seen, that way he would survive the hi-speed traveling method of the full-speed Kinto.